Arrived just before 11am and the queue was 7 in front of me. I saw almost everyone ordering extra fish cake and wantan so I decided to emulate them (follow the crowd).
Mee Kia dry ($5), extra fish cake ($1.50) and 4 extra wantan ($1.60). Total damage came up to $8.10.

There’s a lot going on for my noodles so tackle them one by one. First of all the soup. It was sweet from the cabbage and wolfberry seeds and full of umami from boiling of fish balls. These fishballs were obviously factory made but quite bouncy with good bite and salty enough. The fish cakes were nice from the deep fried crispy edges but lacked the flavour of the fishballs. Wantans were deep fried to perfection and the pork filling still moist and juicy inside biscuit like crispy Wantan skin. Top marks this one. Last but not least, there was also a piece of fish dumpling which tasted very normal.

As for the noodles, I am glad I asked for normal amount of chilli sauce and extra vinegar. The chilli sauce packed quite a bit of heat. Together with the piquant vinegar, each coated strand of mee kia was heavily. The noodles were al dente enough, testimony to the skills of the cook. I must say this is one of the best mee kia I have eaten in the last three months. Portion is just right for $5 so if you are felling extra pecking, ask for extra noodles and pay $0.50 more.

Certainly coming back to try their kway teow and mee pok. After all, besides the good taste, we should support next generation hawkers and preserve our heritage.

Stall owner was so rude!

When it was my turn to order, he practically shouted at me asking what I wish to order. When I said herbal turtle soup, he again shouted “how much!”. I should have walked away at this point but somehow I kept my cool and even explained this is my first visit so I am a bit lost with all the menu overhead and nothing to read or scan. Finally placed order for $15 single portion turtle soup and a claypot sesame oil chicken. All for $22 with two bowls of rice. Gruffly told me to go seat down and wait.

Food tasted so so. Chicken and turtle meat were tender, the former a bit oily (which is normal) and the latter came with herbal soup bordering on too sweet. The chilli sauce was piquant and spicy enough so top marks there.

Honestly the food was okay, nothing fantastic, so it made me wonder why all the bluster. Even his stall assistant got into a verbal joust with him at some point while serving us and told us the stall owner has perpetual bad temper.

Not coming back. No one should be subject to such tirades as a customer, no matter how good the food is. Which it is not.

Arrived at 11.15am and order roast chicken drum stick rice with additional side orders of braised egg and chicken gizzard.

The soup accompanying the chicken rice tastes more of msg and sugar than chicken. Portion of drum stick was also surprisingly small but stall assistant explained its because the drum stick had been deboned. Chilli sauce was okay but could do with a little more tartness.

But alas they committed the cardinal sin of all rice dishes - the chicken rice was not thoroughly cooked and there were grains of rice with rather hard cores. Unforgivable mistake.

The one thing they did right was the price. At $6.50 for drum stick rice plus egg and gizzard, this is very affordable in view of the growing inflation globally.

Met an old friend who lives in Melbourne and just back in Singapore for a short stint. This friend who is in his 70s told me this place has the best porridge in the whole of Chinatown and when he was younger, he ate there a lot, so you bet my expectations were set very high.

Ordered fish belly porridge at $12 per bowl. I got about 4 pieces of fish and yes they were belly cuts with long bones easily removed. Those were nice. But the porridge was not silky smooth like most Cantonese porridge is, more like grainy Teochew style porridge and what killed it for me was the use of factory supplied fried shallots.

Lots of porridge better than this and maybe cheaper. In the end my elderly friend had to admit times have changed since he migrated.

This place is literally next to another famous fried Hokkien Prawn Mee stall in Bukit Batok. To order, just stand in the queue until the stall assistant asks for your order. After that you can leave the queue and when your plate of noodles I ready, she will call you.

The version here is drier than other but not totally. For $6.50 for a medium serving, you get two pieces of sliced pork, 3 shrimps and some thinly sliced squid. There was no wok heat detected. The chilli sauce is sweet which unfortunately was not to my liking. You do get to add pork lard bits as much as you need and if you ask nicely, you can get another guava lime.

Not the best in Bukit Batok. Just average.

A fishball noodles store that opens very early at 4.30am (actually more like 4.40am).

Ordered $5 mee kia dry. The noodles were cooked just right but the chilli sauce and vinegar were sadly lacking omph! I liked their fish cakes and fish meatballs but the normal fishballs were quite bland.

No lack of early bird customers though. By 5am, there already a queue.

Ordered Kotteri Tonkatsu, Spicy Yuzu and Black Garlic Ramen plus Guo as and chicken Karaage. For some unknown reason, the Spicy Yuzu was salty beyond comprehension. One server suggested that we should not have ordered standard broth but the diluted broth. Another told us the red spicy sauce was very salty to begin with. Look, it’s very simple. Don’t serve something unpalatable to your customers if you hope that they will come back. We had to add quarter cup of hot water into the broth in order to eat it.

And what’s this attitude? We ordered wrongly? The spicy sauce is the cause? There was no apology, just a half hearted offer to redo the bowl of noodles.

As for the black garlic and kotteri tonkatsu, both were very normal, nothing to scream about. For the side dishes, Chicken Karaage was nice but Gyoza was like something you can get from supermarket.

All for almost $90 including 3 cups of Ocha. That is not cheap.

The dish Pan Mee resonates more with Malaysians so I came expecting the ubiquitous dish from across the border, one with chewy dough hand torn, with added crispy ikan bilis, sayur manis and an egg, preferably sous vide.

Imagine my disappointment and vindication when I found that the dough here was cut with cookie cutter and then probably stored in a container before cooking. As I have explained many times, most likely the end result is massive lumps of dough clumping together in the broth. See picture.

No sayur manis just spinach. Ikan bilis was crispy enough. As for the egg, by the time I got my bowl of mee hoon kway, it was already broken into little bits, most likely due to excessive stirring of the mee hoon kway to prevent the clumping.

As for the soup, it was tasty but very greasy from the excessive amounts of fried garlic and shallots added.

The chitterlings I ordered was okay but too much for one person so I didn’t finish it. My advice here would be to order side dishes only if you have the appetite for more food because the bowl of mee hoon kway was rather large in portion.

For me, this is the first bowl of noodle this year that caused me to raise my eyebrows and say wow! with my first bite. What hits you is nostalgia because this the the traditional taste that I have slowly forgotten after incessantly eating sub par fish ball noodles.

Ordered mee kia dry as usual. The noodles were Al dente, almost springy. Lots of ingredients - 3 fishballs, 2 meatballs, lots of sliced pork and mushroom. The chilli and vinegar mix was perfect for me. In the background, you can taste lard oil. But the factory fried scallion was a let down.

Took me 40 mins by car from my place to eat this but safe to say I will be coming back for more some time soon.

Small pasta restaurant in basement of Jem. First off, this modern concept of pasta eatery lacks choice of pasta and sauce. You only get spaghetti or penne, Aglio olio or Bolognese or creamy Alfredo. The other sauces were butternut kombu, miso butter and Laksa Olio. All not your normal pasta sauces. I ordered the Aglio Olio and choose smoked duck breast as my protein.

The bowl was served with pasta still piping hot. The spaghetti was cooked just right. But overall it lacked garlic, the usual herbs and was excessively oily. Duck breast was tasted like processed meat.

Call me traditional but I think I’d better stick with proper Italian joints when I want to eat pasta.

Hakka noodles is basically noodles garnishes with mince meat and it comes with deep fried pieces of Yong Tau Fu.

This stall Hakka Taste has gotten their version pat down. Service is fast and I got my food before I could finish snapping off photos of the stall.

The noodles were cooked right, al dente and the meat sauce not too salty or dry. The Yong Tau Fu was quite normal but still nice if I do not compare with those you get in Ipoh or KL.

Overall a very nice lunch. Those with bigger appetites may wish to order extra noodles because the noodles serving was quite small.

Passed by this new Thai food stall at Clementi West kopitiam several times and decided to try when I saw their signboard advertising a new dish - Thai Beef Noodles

At $7 dollars a pop this is more expensive than most beef noodles, Thai or otherwise but rest assured you will get value for money. Large pieces of tender beef was in my bowl. The choice of beef cut was also specially selected as each piece had a sinewy portion that made it more chewy and tasty.

The noodles were also slightly more chewy, very much like those you get in Thailand. Unlike some of these Kway Tieu that you get in Singapore which is just soggy after cooking.

As for the broth, very meaty taste smothered in spices. Do not add too much chilli flakes as theirs pack a lot of heat.

Will come back to try their Pad Thai and Basil Leaves Pork. Such legit Thai food, it’s a rare gem in the West.